


National Emergency

by casparm



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Food Issues, Gen, OCD, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, but not the ED kind
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-30
Updated: 2014-03-30
Packaged: 2018-01-17 13:46:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1389940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/casparm/pseuds/casparm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>ONE SHOT</p><p>Mycroft attends a dinner with other government officials but finds himself distracted by the unsettling meal placed in front of him. Anthea saves the day.</p>
            </blockquote>





	National Emergency

**Author's Note:**

> My headcanon is that Mycroft has OCD and I wanted a quick one-shot of him attempting to work his way around a meal that was not arranged himself, and thus breaks many of his rules.

The cool, cavernous dining hall rose far above the heads of the dinner guests, arching to a point where an ornate crystal chandelier hung. The grandeur of the room tended to leave guests in awe as they spent meals attempting to look around them in amazement without appearing distracted from the company or conversation. For Mycroft, the room never mattered, nor his visitors. For Mycroft, his vision excludes everything around him and focuses on the plate in front of him.

 

The dinner was a standard offering to bureaucrats: two thin slices of fine roast beef, a pool of spiced gravy, three sprouts cooked to perfection, a roast potato topped with rosemary, and a serving of fresh beans lightly sautéed to complement the meal. Mycroft licked his lips in hesitation as he gazed carefully at the food. He blinked slowly, deliberately, and tried to breathe as normally as possible. The one advantage of the situation was that the other dinner guests were too distracted scraping cutlery against their plates and engaging in discussion to notice Mycroft’s untouched plate. Grasping his knife and fork, he started poking around his plate in an attempt to discreetly separate his meal. The gravy was the prime perpetrator, leaking across his plate to contaminate every other item. The meat was unredeemable beneath the pool so Mycroft ignored the two pieces completely. He could not eat them now lest he wanted to contract some horrible disease. He pushed the offering of beans to the rim of this plate and piled them as neatly as possible. They were protected from the gravy behind the potato, though placed expertly enough to not touch it. He could brave the beans. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten. Eleven. He could not brave the beans. The horrendous prime number summoned bile at the back of Mycroft’s throat.

 

“Cat got ‘ya tongue, Mr Holmes?” cried the obnoxious American politician from one end of the table suddenly, causing Mycroft to jump, not obviously enough for anyone but himself to notice, but enough for him drop his knife into the gravy.

“Excuse me?” replied Mycroft in his eloquent tone.

“We were asking opinions on the recently introduced action plan for the invading troops in the Middle East, whether it would be worth withdrawing now,” offered the balding man to the left of him.

“Of course,” he smiled tightly. “I would, in return, like to pose the question of the outcome for either situation – stand down or retained force.”

The following conversation should keep them entertained long enough for Mycroft to continue with his procedure. But any hope of procuring anything for him to eat is long lost as he discovers the top of his knife dripping with the devilish gravy. Mycroft sighs and carefully places his cutlery on his plate in defeat, clasping his hands together tightly to stop him from fidgeting anxiously at the state of his plate. He can deal with the situation at hand, he reminded himself. If he can run a country, he can deal with this. Mycroft maintained this affirmation until the worst occurs.

 

The man to the right of Mycroft (not the balding one; a rather pleasant, if not ignorant, governor of foreign affairs) was in the midst of raising a forkful of balancing beans to his mouth when someone blurted an apparently amusing phrase, causing him to chuckle. The movement dislodged the careful arrangement of beans and before Mycroft had the chance to analyse the situation they had landed in the man’s gravy, showering his right hand with unsightly brown drops. Mycroft’s mind roared into overdrive.

“Oh, my! I do apologise, Mr Holmes! I am terribly sorry!” the man rushed to say, looking very flustered.

Mycroft managed a polite nod in his direction before returning to deal with the crisis that was tearing his mind to shreds. He had to clean it. He had to clean it at once. First he had to leave the table appropriately. He could quickly wipe his hand seemingly clean on his napkin and excuse himself to the bathroom. Too obvious? Possibly. New option. In the next three seconds Mycroft had already composed four other plans of escape and was determining the most respectable when Anthea appeared at the large door of the dining hall.

“Sorry to interrupt, gentlemen,” she announced clearly. “Mr Holmes, we require you in the next room. National emergency.”

 

Mycroft was on his feet expressing permission for excusal, and apologies, before walking briskly out the door in pursuit of Anthea. He kept his contaminated right hand stiffly by his side, taking extra care to not allow it to touch any other part of him. Anthea led him to the kitchen, now empty of staff who had evidently been dismissed early.

“Take your time, Mycroft,” said Anthea quietly as she gestured first to the sink and Mycroft’s safe soap, and then to an arrangement of plates on the table in the centre of the room. Each plate contained a separate component of the meal, perfectly balanced, perfectly uncontaminated. He was even able to count a delightfully perfect ten beans on one of the saucers. Mycroft turned to Anthea to thank her but she had already redirected her attention to her phone. Instead, he leant over and kissed her squarely on the top of her scalp, noting the rise of her cheeks as she smiled in response. Feeling that his gratitude had been adequately received, he rushed over to the sink to initiate his lengthy cleaning process before he allowed himself to even consider the dinner laid out for him. He felt no hurry in his process, a luxury he could only attribute to Anthea’s well-executed announcement.

 

This was, of course, a national emergency.

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave me any suggestions - I hope to write more when I have the time.  
> I am already in the process of writing the first chapter of a Mycroft-orientated kid!fic so I'll wait for the reception to this fanfic before I publish that one.
> 
> Thanks!


End file.
